


Once More With Feeling

by Heathus



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Eye Trauma, Fix-It, M/M, Sort of major character death, Time Travel Fix-It, but he comes back so its fine, tags may change as I write more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22576303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heathus/pseuds/Heathus
Summary: The apocalypse is coming and it cannot be stopped. But if there is someway to end it, The Archivist has to find it. He has to save the world. At any cost. He has to stop reading. No matter what.And so Jonathan Sims dies.Until he wakes up again.Surrounded by paramedics fussing over fresh wounds dotted all over his body. Pain seering through him, but a mind that is emptier than it has been for a long time. He realises what is going on. This is his chance to make things right. Somehow. He can do things better now.Try again.Stay human.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 31
Kudos: 227





	1. Prologue - And so ends The Archivist

The Archivist is sitting at the table.

The room around it seems perfectly normal. A sweet little cottage up in the Scottish Highlands. A pair of muddy boots sits at the doorway, blankets strewn over the small sofa, empty mugs piled up on the draining board. Vague sounds of the countryside slip in from the outside. Sheep are bleating and cows are mooing and the wind is whistling its way through the trees.

At the kitchen table however, something incredibly abnormal is happening. The Archivist is reading a statement. That in itself is not an unusual thing for The Archivist to do, it needs to feed after all, but this is not an ordinary statement. It sits on one of the rickety old chairs, clutching the statement in one hand and clawing at its throat with the other. Blood is starting to run down its neck, soaking into the white of its shirt collar and staining it red. Yet The Archivist continues to read. It cannot stop the words being pulled out of its mouth. On and on it goes. Reciting the words that would bring about its downfall.

_“Come to us in your wholeness. Come to us in your perfection.”_

Its hand is shaking now. Moving against its throat in a desperate attempt to stop itself. It can’t stop itself. It can barely move at all. Not of its own accord anyway. Its mouth is still moving, the only thing that is, and it is the one thing that The Archivist desperately wants to stop. Its hand refuses to let go of the statement. To put it down. To scrunch it up into a ball and hurl it across the room. To get rid of it. Its eyes are jammed open. It can’t even blink. Just stares straight forward at the statement, not even taking anything in. Not knowing what it is going to say until the words come tumbling out of its mouth.

_“Bring all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls –"_

The hand against its neck is shaking more now and it finds that if it puts all of its concentration into that hand, it can move it ever so slightly, ever so slowly, upwards.

_“- and chokes –”_

Its hand reaches further upwards.

_“- and blinds –”_

It can feel the tears that it didn’t know it has been shedding landing on its hand.

_“- and falls –”_

Nails are digging into its chin.

_“- and twists –”_

Its lips are moving against its thumb.

_“- and leaves –”_

It tries to clamp its mouth shut, but its lips keep on moving.

_“- and hides –”_

And sound keeps on coming out.

_“- and weaves –”_

Its hand lets go of its mouth.

_“- and burns –”_

The shaking hand rises higher up its face.

_“- and hunts –”_

It can feel strands of hair brushing against its hand.

_“- and rips –”_

They had fallen out of the messy bun that it had put its hair in earlier.

_“- and leads –"_

It can see the blurry outlines of its fingers in front of its eyes. 

_“- and **dies**.”_

The Archivist pushes its fingers forward and is astonished to find that they obey its command. The action is still hard. There are a million voices screaming in its head not to do this. This will hurt. This will bring about its downfall. There’s one voice that rises above, louder and calmer than the rest, assuring The Archivist that this is what needs to be done. What it needs to do. It knows, without needing to Know, that there is nothing else that it can do. Its a choice: itself or the world.

It feels calm.

Fingers push into eyes and it takes more force than The Archivist thought it would, but it still manages to push deeper, curl its fingers up and drag them back out again, leaving the remaining sockets more or less empty.

For a moment, everything stops. No knowledge is pushing itself into The Archivists brain. It feels vaguely empty. It takes a second to realise that it isn’t speaking anymore. It has done it. It has stopped the apocalypse. It has saved the world. Maybe it isn’t such a monster after all. But as a human, The Archivist has taken too much damage. It isn’t a monster anymore, but being a monster is what had been keeping it alive for longer than it likes to think. It can’t survive like this. But it _isn’t a monster_.

The Archivist breathes a sigh of relief.

And Jonathan Sims dies.


	2. Jonathan Sims Wakes Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan Sims is awake, in the back of an ambulance and his head feels, emptier than it has in years. One though is taking over. What the hell is going on?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know anything about medical or police procedure in this kind of situation so I've decided it works however works best for my story.

Jonathan Sims wakes up.

There is a moment just after he wakes where his mind does not seem to be in control of his body. He lurches up in the ambulance bed that he’s lying in before the pain courses through his body and he falls back with a gasp. Then his brain catches up with him. This is… He can see? He should be dead, surely? But even if by some miracle he survived, he had gouged his own eyes out. He should, at the very least, be blind. So why could he still see?

He barely even got to consider the situation before he was surrounded by paramedics poking him, moving him, and asking him questions that he couldn’t make out through the pain and the haziness and the screaming voice in his head asking **what the hell was going on?**

They just kept talking at him. Explaining something about CO2 and worms and losing consciousness and only then did Jon realise just how quiet his head was. How much he didn’t _Know_. There was still that feeling that had been following him for years of simply being watched. But it had developed into so much more. It wasn’t just a feeling of being watched but also a feeling of being the watcher, knowing that he was responsible for other people getting that awful instinctual knowledge that they are being observed. That feeling just wasn’t there anymore. The feeling of being watched had died down to a level Jon hadn’t felt since – since, well, since Prentiss and the worms and-.

Worms. That’s when the words of the paramedics actually registered within Jon’s mind. And when he remembered that he’d been in this exact same position years ago. This was… he was…

Jon’s mind was racing as he let the paramedics do their thing. He tried to take in as much of what they were saying as he could, but it was kind of hard when he’d just realised that there was a chance he could’ve just travelled back in time. It wasn’t possible, was it? Then again, Jon had seen weirder things over the past few years. He decided that it would be best to just play along with everything until he could find a moment by himself to figure out everything.

It wasn’t long before the paramedics let him go with instructions on how to treat his scars, but an assurance that he had not been infected. Jon shakily got off the bed and stood outside the ambulance, wondering what to do next. If he really was back in time to this day then-.

Jon strode as fast as he dared past the ambulances and paramedics and through the crowd of institute workers that had gathered outside until he found-.

Tim was sat in the back of an ambulance on the other side of the crowd, laughing and joking (and flirting) with the paramedics who were helping him. He waved them off as they finished up and went to put away their supplies. Tim pushed himself up from the ambulance. He was obviously putting on a brave face for the crowd, but winced heavily as he tried to walk. Finding a piece of wall to lean against, Tim relaxed slightly and looked up, scanning the crowd until his eyes met Jon’s. Jon can’t help himself. This is Tim. He’s alive and he’s here and he’s… he’s fucking _smiling_.

Jon breaks into a run.

Despite his obvious surprise, Tim grins at Jon and opens his arms in anticipation as Jon runs into them. They clutch at each other, Jon squeezing incredibly tightly, making sure that this is real. That Tim isn’t going to disappear into a cloud of smoke as soon as he looks away.

Tim snorts into Jon’s hair. “Alright, boss, has this brush with death suddenly given you emotions, then?”

Holding onto Jon’s shoulders, Tim gently pushes them apart. His smile falls at the sight of Jon’s face. Tears are silently dripping down as he looks up into Tim’s eyes and Tim is vaguely aware that his shirt feels rather damp on his shoulder. Their eyes meet and Jon is looking at Tim in a way that he never has before. As if he’s searching for answers that Tim doesn’t even know the question of. He looks so… broken? The past few hours had been… something, and Tim would understand that Jon might be rather shaken, but to this extent? This just didn’t seem like Jon. He should be stuffily denying that anything supernatural had happened and insisting that everyone get back to work.

“Okay, seriously, are you alright?” Tim lets himself slouch against the wall behind him to get closer to Jon’s eye level.

Jon lets out a shaky sigh, “You’re alive.”

He sounds so unsure, so scared, that Tim feels like the statement might as well have been a question. Tim lets his hands rest on Jon’s shoulders, letting Jon know that he’s here. That he’s okay (for a certain definition of the word).

“I’m alive, Jon, I’m okay. We’re both okay. Everyone’s okay.”  
Jon nods along, but he still looks unsure.

“Sasha and Elias are fine. Martin’s okay as well.” Tim reckoned that could be why Jon hadn’t fully relaxed yet. He hadn’t seen that the others had got out as well. “He got back while you were out.”

“Martin…”

Jon breathed out the name so gently, with so much feeling, that Tim was taken aback. He had known that Martin held feelings for Jon and he had had his suspicions that it wasn’t entirely one-sided, but he had no idea that it could be to this extent. In fact, Tim didn’t think he’d ever seen Jon look so… soft, before.

“He’s with the paramedics now, but he’ll come to see you as soon as they let him. He was asking about you as soon as he was out of the tunnels.”

Tim spots someone moving over to the two of them and smiles.

“Speak of the devil.” He nods over so that Jon turns to see what he had. “I think I’ll go find Sasha.”

Jon was so preoccupied looking at Martin walk towards them that Tim’s words didn’t quite register. When Jon turned to try and stop Tim, it was too late, and he was already it off. Which was probably for the best since Jon doesn’t actually know what he’d say to keep Tim away from Sasha. ‘She’s been replaced with an avatar of an eldritch fear’ would be unlikely to get him very far and more likely to get him right back with the paramedics. He’d deal with that later. Let Tim think Sasha is still alive, is still _Sasha_ , for just a bit longer.

Turning back to the matter at hand, Jon was stunned by the Martin who was pushing his way through the crowds towards him. This Martin was just so… there. Jon hadn’t quite realised how much everybody had changed in the years since this moment the first-time round. He was now being faced with a Martin who was happily greeting each person he knew that he passed. With a Tim who was _happy to see him_. And it dawned on Jon just how much he had missed this time. The time before this. This, where he was now, was the exact moment when everything had gone to shit.

It did cross Jon’s mind that this could be his hell. To see everything go to hell again. To be brought back to a happier time just to watch on, helpless, as the exact same things happened. Maybe this would be it for eternity, just seeing himself destroying all these people’s lives, over and over and over again.

But then Martin was right in front of him and couldn’t think about that now because this was _Martin_. A Martin that may have gone through the hell of Jane Prentiss, but hadn’t yet decided that life was better without the rest of the world involved. This Martin was stood barely a foot away from Jon, fiddling with his fingers and looking unsure of how to proceed. So, Jon did what he considered the most obvious thing to do.

He pulled Martin into a hug.

While Jon may have thought this the obvious thing to do, it was clear from the squeak that he gave as Jon pulled him into his embrace that Martin didn’t. This Martin didn’t think Jon cared about him. Rightfully so, really, but Jon made a mental note that he needed to change that as soon as possible.

The hug lasted longer than Martin thought was possible and shorter than Jon could stand.

“I’m glad you’re okay.” Jon cringed at how surprised Martin was at this.

“I’m glad you are too. I’m… I’m sorry. For- for leaving.”

“Martin-”

“It was an accident. I thought you two were with me! I mean, the worms came at us, and they were so much faster, and then there was the gas, and the running, and I just... I, I thought you were right behind me. But when I turned round you were gone. You were both gone.” Martin takes a break to breath out shakily, continuing to refuse to look at Jon. “It was an accident.”

“Martin.”

Martin paused to look up at Jon and Jon’s heart clenched at how nervous and guilty Martin looked. Like he was waiting to be told off for what he had done.

“Martin,” Jon repeated, “It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault. It’s okay. You’re lucky you weren’t with us” Jon gestures to the still bloody scars coating most of his body.

“I’m still sorry. I shouldn’t have left you to deal with that.”

Jon had to laugh. Sure, Martin had changed so much, but he was still _Martin_. Past, present and future.

“But, while I was down there-. Once we had split-. I saw-. I just think you should know that-.”

Jon sobered up at that. He knew exactly what Martin was about to tell him. The news that had spiralled him into a paranoid mess the first-time round.

“I found-. Uh. There was a body-. _Her_ body-.”

Jon reached up to and held Martin’s arms in reassurance. Martin looked up from his hands to meet Jon’s eyes.

“Take a breath, Martin, and maybe start from the beginning.”

“Alright. So, um, yeah, we got separated so I, I tried shouting, but you didn’t answer. The walls seemed to kill the sound dead and there wasn’t any echo. They were old stone, like, really old, and there was no light except my torch. I, I always keep my torch on me, ever since I moved into the Archives, so I had that, at least. I wandered for a while. It’s a, it’s a maze down there, John. I don’t know how far the passages go. Maybe miles. I think it must be the old Millbank Prison, like Tim was saying before. I even found some stairs at one point, but I really didn’t want to go down them. I hadn’t seen any worms for a few minutes, and weirdly enough that actually started to worry me, like, if there weren’t any worms then I’d gone too far from the Institute. And there was more dust in those corridors too, and dead rats, even some discarded wine bottles. So, yeah. Um. I was trying to go back, not that I knew what back even meant down there, when I heard the scream. I don’t even know how to go about describing it, but I thought... well I hoped... Well, when I started to find the shrivelled bodies of worms all over the place, I knew she was dead. So I wanted to get out of there. I was looking for a way up, but it felt more and more like I was trapped. Every turn just led me to another empty corridor. When I finally found a door, I thought it might actually get out, but instead... It was a small room. Square. There was dust on everything. Cardboard boxes were piled around. They were full of old cassette tapes. She was sat in a wooden chair in the middle of the room. No worms. No cobwebs. Just... an old corpse. Gertrude Robinson. She was slumped forward, but I could see her mouth hanging open. So I ran, and I found the trapdoor soon afterwards.”

Jon sighed. He had known exactly what was coming, but it didn’t make it much better. At least this time he didn’t have to be paranoid. He knew precisely who had killed Gertrude. Exactly who would be coming after him, even if it wasn’t in the same way. Which brought his mind on to the topic of exactly how he was going to deal with ‘Elias’. At the moment it seemed safer to play dumb. If he didn’t make his thoughts obvious, hopefully Jonah wouldn’t find the need to dig into his mind and realise that Jon had no desire to be his pawn to start the apocalypse with. But that was a thought for another time. Right now, Martin was here, and he was expecting a reaction to what he thought was a massive reveal.

“Okay.” Jon didn’t know how to play this. If he was going to play dumb for Jonah, would he have to play dumb for everybody? Could he still change the world without letting anybody know that he had seen all this happen before?

“Okay.” Jon breathed out. He could think of nothing else to do but grip on to Martin as if he were the only one who could keep him sane.

“Okay?”

“Well, that’s… that’s really something Martin.”

“I mean, yeah, but I thought you’d-”

“We all knew though, really. She’d been missing for so long, we all kind of assumed she was dead. I guess the fact that her rotting corpse was in the maze-like tunnels beneath our place of work for months isn’t particularly assuring, and I’m sorry you had to see that, but her _being_ dead isn’t very… shocking.”

“Well…” Jon could see that Martin had realised the crucial piece of information that he’d left out of his rambling explanation.

“Is there something else?” Jon knew he shouldn’t push it, that he’d never been a great liar, but he couldn’t help tease Martin a little, even if Martin didn’t know he was being teased.

“It’s just… _how_ she died that is more… _interesting_?”

“How did she die?”

“Um. Well, I can’t be sure. It was so dark, and I only saw the body for a few seconds. The police were quite clear that the cause of death could be absolutely any—”

Martin stopped and took a few calming breaths before locking eyes with Jon. He looked so intense and Jon knew that Martin was worried about how the news would affect him. Rightfully so, if this had been the first time around. But Jon wouldn’t spiral, he wouldn’t get paranoid and, most importantly, he wouldn’t push Martin away, he wouldn’t push Tim away, and he wouldn’t trust a single word that was said by “Sasha” or “Elias”.

“She was shot. Three times, that I could see. Three shots to the chest.”

Jon nodded once. Then leant in. Martin leant back.

They stood there. Just outside the Magnus Institute. Surrounded by paramedics and scared and nosy institute employees. Hugging. One thought filled Jon’s mind as he pressed his face into Martin’s shoulder.

_Things would be different this time round._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So is season 5 already destroying everyone else, or is that just me? The first episode has already given me at least 3 fic ideas, but I'm determined to finish this one first.  
> This fic was thought of and planned before season 5 so, while I may change bits slightly depending on the new information recieved, I won't be able to make dramatic changes even if there is contradicting information.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry to Sasha for having her death not be fixed by this fic. I want to consentrate on the relationship between Jon and Tim more and with the way I wanted everything to pan out, the Jane Prentiss incident had to have already happened.
> 
> Anyway, Thanks for reading.


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